Twitter perma-bans 360,000 accounts for promoting terrorism

TwitterInc. (NASDAQ: TWTR) banned over 360,000 accounts that promoted terrorism and violent behavior. The users had been doing so since February 2016 by the time the company got rid of them.

Twitter has said it wouldn’t tolerate this kind of behavior, and the move continues an ongoing effort to purge the social media platform of terrorist supporters. Since mid-2015, the network has purged about 360,000 accounts for violating the rules against promoting violence and terrorism, but the company stated that was only the beginning.

The statement explained daily suspensions had been up 80 percent since last year, with spikes immediately following the terror attacks in Paris and Belgium.

Since mid-2015, we have suspended over 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts. Read more here: https://t.co/FQJeOTtPLz

The 360,000 banned users won’t be able to recover their accounts

Twitter assures it has disrupted the suspended user ability to return to the social media of the suspended offenders.

Twitter claimed the suspended users cannot use the social media platform again. The company has issued several teams to review reports and collaborate with other social platforms to suspend extremists and keep them from coming back.

The organization said there was no “magic algorithm” to deal with the violent messages, but the teams are working hard to attend to reports of extremist accounts quickly. Accordingly, the engineers are employing spam-fighting tools.

Terrorism has been losing online presence steadily

In addition to the suspended accounts, Twitter Global Public Policy team has extended partnerships with non-governmental organizations that are waging war on terror at a global scale. Such institutions include Parle Moi d’Islam (France), Imams Online (UK), Wahid Foundation (Indonesia), The Sawab Center (UAE), and True Islam (US).

The social platform’s effort is already paying off. In July, The US government announced pro-Islamic State traffic in Twitter had plummeted 45 percent in the last two years. To bulk the reveal, The Associated Press reported the average number of IS-followers accounts had dropped from over 1,500 in 2014 to approximately 300 in 2016.

Terrorism support is only a portion of the problem

Twitter has been a long champion of free speech on the web, but in 2015, they started to see the dangers of the “global town square,” a place without boundaries that has drawn all kinds of unwanted messages.

Government agencies and even the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton have criticized the social media for its ability to attract bullies, racist and extremist groups.

Either way, the social network will try to find a way to reconcile a free speech stance with a safe environment for women, minorities and zero tolerance for terrorism.